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U.S. Reps Chu and Coble Start Intellectual Property Caucus
cervesaebraciator writes "U.S. Representative Judy Chu (D-CA) will be starting a new caucus with the ostensible purpose of protecting the intellectual property rights of filmmakers, musicians and other artists. The new caucus, styled the Congressional Creative Rights Caucus, will be formed along with Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC). Chu's office released a statement, including the following: 'American innovation hinges on creativity – it is what allows our kids to dream big and our artists to create works that inspire us all. The jobs that result are thanks entirely to our willingness to foster creative talent, and an environment where it can thrive and prosper. [...] The Congressional Creative Rights Caucus will serve to educate Members of Congress and the general public about the importance of preserving and protecting the rights of the creative community in the U.S. American creators of motion pictures, music, software and other creative works rely on Congress to protect their copyrights, human rights, First Amendment rights and property rights.'"
The corporations?
Eat a dick liars!
With the outsourcing of jobs and the cheap labour of Asia/India replacing the manufacturing sector in the USA, what does it have left to export or create jobs with?
You can't make a Hollywood blockbuster in China or India or South Africa, you can't outsource new music to India...
But make no mistake about it, the word "preserve" here is code for "never allow into public domain."
looks like the RIAA / MPAA is, once again, stepping up their game
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
True innovation is about taking the ideas that people have spent years and resources developing and subtly improving them, not about paying lawyers to sort out license fees or waiting for patents to expire.
"We don't like the fact that so-called 3rd World nations are starting to catch up to, and surpass us, we must form a working group in Congress for the sole purpose of guaranteeing profits for dinosaur companies for centuries into the future!"
@Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
And good films. However, it is only possible to make money on those when people in other industries are employed and have disposable income. These jobs are secondary effects of others having money to spend on them. It is maslow's hierarchy of needs, if everyone else is broke they can't and won't buy the media. Some will turn to piracy and some will just do without. You can't create jobs or support an economy with a circle of media industry workers buying each others stuff. By necessity there needs to be other people involved. If the law makers wanted to help, they would work on improving the economy. With more disposable income in the hands of the masses, media sales would increase. If the media industry wanted to help they could improve the quality of their product and/or lower prices (I feel like there is not nearly as many good movies any more, but maybe it is just because I am getting older). While "strengthening" the IP protections of artists may prevent some people from pirating media, I don't think this is the big problem. I'm not sure I know any adults in the work force that pirate stuff. Most just buy the things that they think are worth the price and don't bother with the other stuff.
GENERATION 27: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
"American innovation hinges on creativity â" it is what allows our kids to dream big ..."
- and then pay royalties on those dreams. We can't let them kids steal those dreams. Think of the children!
Sorry, I'm over it and past it. Do I still directly contribute to the individual artist or inventor if I can? Yes.
Do I respect the patents, copyrights, and trademarks of large corporations? Well, not any more.
yays for corruption!
My property rights when I've bought a movie?
No, apparently you're fighting to remove my property rights.
My First Ammendment when it comes to saying what I've heard?
No, apparently you're fighting to remove my First Ammendment rights.
Nowhere in the US Constitution does it equate protections of rights pertaining to intellectual works as "property".
The term "property" implies that it can be sold, that it can be inherited, that it can be owned - and owned by non-persons at that. Nowhere does the Constitution say these things, nor does it even use the term "property" in this context.
Rather, it says that Congress shall have the power "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." And that is all it says on the matter.
Note that it says "Authors and Inventors". It does not say businesses: if it had meant to include businesses, it would have said so, but the Constitution starts out with "We the People", and it is about the rights of people and the powers and limitations of government over those people (much less corporations or unions, which are not people: a group of persons is not a person any more than a human body is a cell). And note that the Constitution uses the term "exclusive Right": it does not use the term "property". A right is akin to a lease. It is not ownership of the object in question. Thus, in the term "intellectual property", the "property" is merely a lease of sorts granted to Authors and Inventors (people) - for a limited time. That does not automatically imply inheritance to me, nor does it automatically imply that it can be bought and sold as we assume that property can: those are extrapolations of the "rights" intended and we should question those extrapolations and not take them for granted: do they actually promote science and the useful arts? I therefore think that the term "intellectual property" implies extrapolations that might not have been intended.
Copyright and patent law (these terms are also not in the Constitution) have made huge leaps beyond what the Constitution intended. That is why we are off track.
Do they realize that 99% of theses rules that corporations want will hurt artists, creators, etc. The record companies want to bring back the days where they can sell a million records and the band hardly gets enough money to buy a new van.
A great but typical example of this would be the guy who wrote the book, "Nature of Code"(great book) he now gives people the option of buying his book online for a price you choose ranging from 0-10 dollars. Other than the transaction fee he gets 100% of the money resulting in his getting up to triple as much as he did when his previous book sold through a traditional publisher while the consumer gets it for 1/5th as much.
I don't see any need to protect the traditional publisher one iota. If any new laws are needed they should be there to protect the little guy from the traditional publisher. But in this day of big money politics politicians aren't there anymore for the voter. If anything they seem annoyed when voters get their own act together and boot them out.
Guess it's OK to outsource to a nation that sucks up to us!
American innovation hinges on creativity
so let's do everything we can to stifle it.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
then do they remake, and or make sequels, the the same damn movies over and over again?
Howard Coble stated that the Copyright Term Extension act (which retroactively extended copyright's terms by 20 years) was good for consumers: "It is also good for consumers. When works are protected by copyright, they attract investors who can exploit the work for profit. That, in turn, brings the work to the consumer who may enjoy it at a movie theater, at a home, in a car, or in a retail establishment. Without that exploitation, a work may lie dormant, never to be discovered or enjoyed." (Congressional Record, Volume 144, 1998, H1458 http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/citation.result.CREC.action?congressionalRecord.volume=144&congressionalRecord.pagePrefix=H&congressionalRecord.pageNumber=1458&publication=CREC )
of setting up and announcing a task force of this type.
Right now, the MPAA, RIAA, and other organizations that represent artists have a difficult time figuring out to whom they should make political donations in order to protect artists' rights. 450+ representatives and 100 senators- that means a lot of money has to be spread far and wide in order to have the desired outcome. By forming and announcing the existence of a group dedicated specifically to protecting artists' rights, this group of senators has provided a focal point for the flow of donations, easing the burden on contributing organizations and leaving more money for the artists whose works are going to be protected.
The representatives should be applauded for their efforts to ensure that artists rights are protected and that there will be more money for those artists now that the lobbying groups will have to spend less to acquire that protection.
As long as the U.S. provides for the time tested tried and proven methods of letting people freely experiment with building on existing ideas and technology it will be just fine. Woe be the day though when artists and inventors have a say in which direction the next generations creator's choose to take their ideas, for that will be the death of innovation in this nation.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
It's terrible. The music and film industry crush innovation 24-7. Entertainment, music, news, storytelling, whatever you want to call it lost all aspects of meaning and it's blatantly a propaganda machine at this point. Of course big moneymakers that don't know anything about music or film can't be bothered providing valid and reliable products and services, so they use the money to force everyone into playing their lousy 1 dimensional game of fake economies. I can't believe people are spending so much money on garbage and it's such a critical part of our economy. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to know what MPAA/RIAA would do with their time if they weren't wasting it there. We seriously need to get off this rock, the cosmos may be incredibly dangerous but it isn't nearly as dangerous as us sitting here and gossiping about celebrities.
Hey, Chu and Coble: Fuck you and the horse you rod in on.
All that needs to be said.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Disney
"So don't get programmed by anybody but yourself" --Bill S. Preston, Esquire
It would be perverse indeed to assume that the founders intended a system where every copyright holder would have to own a publishing company. Because that is exactly what you are proposing.
It was certainly NOT true under English law that this was the case, and there is no evidence that such was the intent of the founders to require this.
The existing process in English law included the sale of the copyright to publishers, and in fact this process was encouraged by people like John Locke when the reform of Licensing led to the Statute of Anne.
Yeah, but corporations are people don't-ya-know
Wow! This is what we needed. I'm so GLAD Congress has finally come to its senses and organized to protect the rights of a minority which has been so shortchanged and hard pressed. Next we really badly need a lobby for mega-yacht owners, they get such a raw deal.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
More corruption and waste. Just what we need in the federal government.
You get the government you deserve.
Re-elect no one, ever.
Before Chu and Coble get too far into this propaganda exercise, they should educate themselves about the background for the culture they're presuming knowledge of:
If the terms of the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) of 1998 were instead enacted in - say - 1920, a good portion of our current legacy of movies and music likely would not exist. Example: Walt Disney & company borrowed liberally from the works of the Brothers Grimm. If the brothers' estate had retained rights, would Walt been able to afford it? If the Grimm tales had become orphan works, with the rights holders unknown, would Walt have been able to proceed at all?
Luke, help me take this mask off
We are propagandized that there must be no taxation without representation. Let me express the converse. Can there be representation without taxation? Of course. Low income people can vote because anything that impedes their vote has been identified by the US Attorney General "a poll tax".
The more absolute intellectual property rights become, the more certain the government needs to collect taxes from the income thereof. It cannot be had both ways. Having intellectual property as an absolute right and yet having the income from the same be out of reach of taxation for the government's protection of that right.
Intellectual property has representation by the fact that laws were passed for its protection. It is only just that the income thereof is properly taxed for that representation.
Sounds like our Congress has already been retrained to believe that copyright violations are a criminal matter to be prosecuted by the government rather than a civil disagreement to be adjudicated between private parties.
Yeah, I'm being obvious. But it got me thinking: What civil matters are the next to become criminal through lobbying by corporations?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I am totally certain that Mozart could not compose without being certain that he could be filthy rich. Van Gogh also would never dream of painting without certainty of great wealth.
But I am really certain that law makers can only make laws. Think of all those laws as a huge roll of toilet tissue on which endless printing of laws continues night and day and no old laws are ever deleted. So these law makers get out of bed each morning and argue over just how a pile of new laws should be written and then they get their pay checks.
And in the case of intellectual property we must all become so very aware that supporting the middle men is all so important. Without all these laws these middlemen could not rob the artists blind. And we all just might be able to listen to music that is not buried by economic interests. For example try listening to Dixieland Jazz on the net. Oops! The gendre is missing. Can't be found anywhere. It can't be purchased either. A form of music both genuine and unique to America simply can not be accessed simply because commercial interests have strangled the market. Oh! don't worry. The artists never got paid anyway. And that music is 100 years old or so so copyright does not apply. But our copyright system strangled it anyway.
MPAA, RIAA are just going to keep beating this dead horse and people are going to keep walking away from them. I've already stopped going to most movies, buying music that isn't indie and good and cut the cable cord. I'm not the only one.
I see music in particular heading in a new direction. Bands will become more popular via places like Youtube, etc and then use a kickstarter like site to raise funds to record an actual album. Touring live shows will bring in income and the music will be pretty much given away freely. Fans can continue to give money between albums via patronage sites. Bands who do well will get a lot of contributions via fans to their album kickstarters. Crap bands will not get backed and will die out. People in the music industry will be expected to work like any small business paying their own taxes and putting aside funds for their retirement. No more free ride on a single hit. People who do music for the love of it will flourish here. People just wanting to hump the system for fame and fortune will not do so well.
Movies may head this way too with people joining kickstarters set up by well liked producers and directors. Giving x amount gets you a free ticket at any theater in the country, giving more might get you goodies like posters, toys, signed memorabilia, or even your name in the credits for major contributors. Once the movie goes out, people will share it but fans can patronize via donations if they liked it. Same rules apply as to music as for retirement planning, etc. Those who get it and do good work will still go far and do well. Those who just pump out crap and want to milk it forever will go nowhere.
And yet we live in a world where every artist / writer / collective CAN have their own publishing company and it is trivial to set up. The cost of distribution is nearly zero, the cost of transaction is the same as any business and again trivial. The cost of marketing is probably the biggest expense and time consumer.
Creative people don't need publishers, they just need good PR. They don't need to sell their copyrights for that. There is no need to allow businesses to own copyrights.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Posting as AC because I've forgotten my password.
I've been partaking in copyright legislation discussions on a sound engineering forum called Gearslutz. One opinion that seems to be spread with a considerably large amount of people on that board is the idea that copyright legislation is constantly on retreat and that the music industry is being bullied by masses of lobbyists from the tech-industry (Microsoft, Google, Apple) weakening copyright legislation and filling their own pockets with money made from piracy.
It's supposedly a grand conspiracy where copyright is under heavy assault and the just might of the media companies isn't enough to stop it.
For years I'd have to dig around candidate platform docs to find out if they were an ally on these issues before donating. Now I just have to see if they caucus with this group and use that info as a proxy. I suspect that I can now fund primary challengers and general opponents to members of this caucus to influence congressional attitudes towards copyright and patents. And instead of trying to educate representatives individually we could focus on caucus leadership to sway their position at the same time.
How long until they remove the expiration date of copyright entirely? As it stands we have copyrights that last OVER A CENTURY. Do you know how many things actually last a century in the public consciousness? Not a whole hell of a lot. Bring back the 28-year term limit.
So, now we have corrupt congress critters creating a group to lobby the other members of congress that aren't currently taking bribes from the RIAA/MPAA? How can this possibly serve the public interest? This is doubtless a backdoor "big media" ploy to get rid of fair use entirely and make things even more one sided.
I think that is why most people have such disdain for things like the DMCA. The take down demands are TOO one sided, there needs to be rapidly escalating penalties for issuing false take downs (and yes, issuing a take down for material covered by fair use is a false take down).
Tar and Feathers.
That this is probably not about protecting the rights of artists, but extending the rights of corporations over the people. Next up, music copyrights taken over by companies because it is produced as work for hire, extension of copyright terms for "limited times" of 999 years, overrides to laws of first sale, increased use of trade marks to block copyright expiry etc.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
No ownership required. The copyright holder would simply hire a publisher to print his works and pay them their fee, he would then be free to sell his works for whatever he could get for them. If he is popular enough he gets rich, if his works suck he goes out of business. That's the American way.
Long ago (years before the first CD burner became available to the public), I looked into having some CD's made. It was like $50 to make the master disk and then $1 for each copy after that. I don't remember off hand what the cost was per disk for the artwork (it depended a lot on the number of colors as if I remember right it was all silk-screened). So say for sake of argument (I'm just going to make up some numbers) I could make 10,000 copies for $50,000 (cost of pressing, CD artwork, jewel case, art insert, shipping and storage) and then sell each of those for $18 apiece (the typical cost of a music CD in those days), I could made approximately $130,000 in profit. That's a profit margin of 260%. At this insane profit rate you can see why the big media corporations absolutely panicked when CD burners became available to the public. Now I could do the same thing today via MP3s and the Internet which brings the cost per unit down to almost nothing. The big media people are just desperate to keep a hold of their failing business model.
The concept of IP is a direct violation of the principle of free speech, and the one major loophole in the US constitution. It basically amounts to saying "speech is free unless the government decides it's not, and then it goes to the person with the most money." Businesses are realizing this loophole and taking advantage of it. The only reason why it's become a problem in recent decades is because copyright and patent law and practices have become so unreasonable.
IP is a crutch for those who can't innovate. It's protectionism for the weak, lazy, and corrupt. If what you do is really that innovative, you don't need the government to bless it as such.
This looks like the first salvo in the upcoming "Mickey's Law" that is expected when the copyright on Mickey Mouse again comes up for expiration (2018, I think). 5 years is about the right time-frame for the caucus to establish itself and starting putting out "studies" showing how beneficial extended copyright is.
Meanwhile, it's a nice big sign to the world saying "Hey Hollywood and patent trolls, we want your money!"
We are the 198 proof..
> No ownership required. The copyright holder would simply hire a publisher to print his works and pay them their fee, he would then be free to sell his works for whatever he could get for them. If he is popular enough he gets rich, if his works suck he goes out of business. That's the American way.
That still forces the author to put down his typewriter and run a distributions and sales enterprise. Sorry, but it's not acceptable to force this sort of structure.
When the Constitution was put into force the Statute of Anne had been in place for something like 80 years, and authors selling copyright along with their manuscript was well established. The idea that the Founders anticipated a system where these rights could not be sold is preposterous.
> And yet we live in a world where every artist / writer / collective CAN have their own publishing company and it is trivial to set up.
Sure, they can do that, which is a really cool thing. However back in 1787 the problems of being a publisher were much more severe. Ben Franklin had all kinds of issues publishing his periodicals, including such basic things like there being an extremely limited supply of paper in the US. The history of RittenhouseTown is pretty interesting if you are interested.
And can is NOT the same as SHOULD. Authors aren't necessarily interested in being publishers. It is said that the really good writers write because they MUST write. Is it reasonable public policy to force them to be publishers as well?
It think the idea is ridiculous.
I think this is a great idea. Makes it really easy and really transparent for voters to identify these people.
And since I think you are being ironic, I think you will agree that that is part of the point I am making. The Constitution is about the powers of government over people, and the rights of people. Nowhere does it say "business" or "corporation". (I believe that corporations of sorts did exist at that time, especially in Europe, although US corporate law was still someone non-existent I believe but I could be wrong.) Regardless, the assumption that the Constitution's provision "...securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings..." is about anything other than people is an extrapolation and should be subject to question.
I agree. This is why when I submitted the article I put the term "intellectual property" in quotes. This did not survive the editorial process but I suppose one can't complain. We are, whether we like it or not, compelled to use this dreadful term if for no other reason than to identify it as a problematic concept. "(Thus the age perfects its clench.)"
My favorite thing about the press release, however, was the name of the caucus. "Creative Rights". Who can argue with creative rights? Rights is a trump card in American rhetoric, a 'God term' as Richard Weaver would have it. To deny rights is to be at once oppressive and regressive. And 'creative' carries with it a long list of positive connotations. I expect we'll see more talk of creative rights as 'intellectual property' is increasingly perceived as negative, stuffy, and oppressive.
Fuck You.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
> It would be perverse indeed to assume that the founders intended a system where every copyright holder would have to own a publishing company. Because that is exactly what you are proposing.
That's pretty much the way it was in 1776.
Publishing was much more decentralized then. You didn't have a cartel of gatekeepers deciding what would get published. Business entities in general were much smaller.
The idea that some variation on the British East India Company would control the creation of art or invention would likely have horrified the founders.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Your idea of what the regime should be is pretty irrelevant. The US has one justificatoin that legally allows them to enforce the notion of a copyright. Does it increase creatitivty? If not then all of your crowing is irrelevant.
Despite the fact that some of the Supremes mirror your ideology, the laws of the United States don't exist to make sure that corporations can make money don't particular things.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Nowhere in the US Constitution does it equate protections of rights pertaining to intellectual works as "property".
There is a LOT of things the Constitution does not enumerate or spell out or define. That doesn't mean much.
As you point out the Constitution offers Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right... And there is an implication that the Author and Inventor can transfer that right, otherwise what is the point of having an exclusive right? Note that it also refers to Authors and Inventors, it doesn't refer to people or corporations or groups, or anything. Just "Author" and "Inventor."
This "represetation of the artists" will be the DRM and studios... I get your point about the public domain, but who is going to represent the _actual_ artists and other creatives?
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Therefore it is good by definition.
'chrismcb', you wrote, "Note that it also refers to Authors and Inventors, it doesn't refer to people or corporations or groups, or anything. Just 'Author' and 'Inventor.' "
But the Constitution starts out with "We the People..."
I think that if we continue down the road of imputing personhood to every kind of grouping of persons, then we are in big trouble; and I think that if we continue down the road of conferring the rights that people have to every kind of grouping of persons, then we are in even bigger trouble.
A group of persons is not a person, just as a pack of wolves is not a wolf, a computer is not a transistor, and a brain is not a nerve cell. A group of persons has emergent properties that make is substantially different from an individual person. A person has a conscience, but large a group of thousands of persons does not. A person can put their own self interest aside and think of the greater good, but it is very unusual for a group to do that. If one were to anthropomorphize a group of persons, the group could usually be characterized as selfish and unfeeling - the characteristics of a sociopath.
Do we want the protections of the Constitution to automatically extend to such things, without some careful consideration?